Spider discovery like uncovering 'hidden treasure'
The new species of trapdoor spider is discovered by scientists from Durrell working in Mauritius.
Spider discovery compared to finding 'hidden treasure'
Conservationists uncovered the Mauritian tidal trapdoor spider while working on a Mauritian island
Scientists have said they were "completely stunned" after identifying a new spider species.
A team from Jersey's Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust was working with partners on the Mauritian island of Ilot Vacoas when the arachnid was seen in 2023 along a stretch of rock on the coast.
The charity said the find was confirmed as a new species of trapdoor spider, later named the Mauritian tidal trapdoor spider (Idioctis marevallum).
Dr Max Tercel, the entomologist who discovered the spider, said it felt like uncovering a "hidden treasure".
Looking back on the discovery, Tercel said he found the spider on "a stretch of coastal rock with sparse vegetation".
It was "not somewhere we expected to find something so remarkable", he said.
"It was dark by then and I was carefully searching through crevices with my head torch when, to my astonishment, I noticed a familiar pattern - a spider's legs extending from its burrow, something I'd only ever seen before in lush forests and grasslands," he said.
"I was completely stunned."
Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust said that instead of digging its own burrow like other trapdoor spiders, the Mauritian tidal spider lived in tubes in coralline bedrock thought to have been made by worms and molluscs thousands of years ago.
The spider closes the entrance with a trapdoor made from silk, sand and algae, the trust said, and its home is fully submerged at high tide and repeatedly struck by waves.
Nik Cole, Mauritius country manager at Durrell, said the discovery was "incredibly exciting".
He said: "The thing I remember most is Max screaming at me to come over because he'd just seen a mygalomorph - a trapdoor spider.
"I couldn't believe something from the same group as tarantulas could be living in a place like this.
"I was up all night, holding my phone in the air trying to get a signal and searching for any evidence of a spider like this in Mauritius."